


[you don't know me, you don't wear my chains]

by qqueenofhades



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8326246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qqueenofhades/pseuds/qqueenofhades
Summary: My modern cursed!Lieutenant Duckling AU, posted here on request of tumblr. Angst warning...





	1. I

Boston is not the best place to be living out of a car in winter. It's an even worse place to be living out of a car in winter with a six-month-old baby, as there's nowhere to stash Henry's Goodwill car seat but the front, while Emma and Killian curl up together in the back, cramped and restless, woken to tend to him or by the hum of passing traffic, or to ensure the windshield hasn't iced up, because while they've managed to avoid one of those infamous blizzards that shuts down the entire Northeast for a week, the temperature has rarely struggled above freezing since November. They don't like to drive around much because they don't have gas money, and that, combined with the legendary difficulty of finding a parking spot, means they mostly stay put. But they can't remain in one place as obvious vagrants forever, even in the seedier sections of the city, and with both of them used to a life on the move, this feels different. Stranger. Oppressive. As much as they want a home, they don't want it like this.

Still, it could be worse. At least they're here. At least they're together. Killian is out pounding the pavement all day looking for work, and after Emma suggested that he cut his shaggy hippie ponytail and fringe – or rather she cut it, chopping methodically away with a pair of blunt scissors while he was as uptight as a princess about the whole thing – he's managed to keep them in enough money to feed Henry, if not always themselves, and book into a hotel room if the cold ever gets really bad. She loves those nights, those sweet rare nights where they're warm and comfortable, can take a hot shower and stretch out in a real bed rather than the tiny, cement-hard black leather boot of the Bug, where she knows they can sleep without the fear of an officer knocking on the window, or Henry abruptly turning into an infant icicle, or any of those. She's tried to persuade Killian that they should do this more often, they should sneak in between housekeepings or break into a low-rent motel where they'd probably just be glad there was anyone staying there at all, but he remains stubborn. He doesn't want to _steal_ things. He wants to do this the right way. And he doesn't want to take any risks of what happened in Portland happening again.

Emma supposes grudgingly that he has a point. Even clear across the country, she'd be foolish to think they had an entirely fresh start. Of the two of them, Killian is the cautious, traditional, straight-laced one, the one who vociferously objected when she wanted to just steal food when they were hungry, who fretted that she was running too many risks by keeping the Bug, who still has this confounded old-fashioned belief that the world is a just and upright place filled with essentially good people that they should be loathe to take advantage of – much as she loves him, Emma doesn't understand half of how he thinks sometimes. But if it's ever a question of applying the five-finger discount or making her go hungry, Killian always chooses the former. Even insists that he do the stealing so she won't get caught, which they furtherly disagree about; of the two of them, Emma is the one who knows how to do this. Killian is as conspicuous as a four-piece mariachi band when he's trying to shoplift, sweating and nervous and stammering and loitering casually by the shelf with the food he definitely, no sir, is not going to try to stuff under his jacket the instant the bored cashier turns their back or goes for a smoke break. Nope. Nothing to see here, everyone. Move along.

Emma has just turned eighteen. Killian is perhaps a year and a half older, but neither of them are sure. He's never known his birthday, remembers nothing about his childhood, and isn't sure how he even ended up in the States in the first place; he has a still-noticeable English accent that he has learned to use to his advantage when faced with the inexplicable American weakness for it. Emma suspects repressed memories, an upbringing even more traumatic than hers, maybe a head injury at some point. It's part of what binds them together so deeply, this lost boy and lost girl. There is nothing in the world more precious to them than each other. They know what they've found, young and stupid and scared as they might be, and they have to hold on.

A mysterious man on a motorbike turned up one night and told Killian that Emma had a destiny, that he had to leave her for her own good, that the fate of everyone she loved rested on it. Killian told him to take a bloody hike.

As he related the story to Emma later, snuggled up under a blanket and watching the stars, listening to the distant booming horns of freighters on the Willamette, she'd thought he was pulling her leg. Why would anyone think she was important, why would anyone try to get Killian to abandon her when it was clearly the last thing he would ever do, and why would anyone ride up out of the blue and act as if they knew her and this nonexistent family? But Killian wasn't the type to joke about something like that, and looking at his face, Emma realized he was serious. It unsettled her, and she nestled closer. "Anyway," she had said. "Let's forget about him. He doesn't matter."

If only that had been the case.

* * *

Emma named the baby Henry for the simple reason that Henry seemed like the kind of thing successful people named their children. Something in that vein, something nice and traditional: Henry, William, John, James, Michael. She hadn't been able to give it much more thought than that. Most of the time leading up to his arrival was a blur. After they had been pulled over for what they thought was a routine traffic stop, always a dicey proposition when you were driving a stolen car and had no insurance or in Killian's case, any actual government-issued ID, the troopers told them that they had been informed that this car, Oregon registration E83-KAE (Killian and Emma, Emma told him flirtatiously, it was a sign) was connected to the theft of twenty thousand dollars in watches from a high-end jewelry store. It didn't take long for the police to run the specs and come to the logical conclusion that these pair of teenage joyriders were responsible. Killian and Emma were both arrested, sent to the county jail while the authorities dug into her past as a troubled foster kid, and still failed to come up with anything on Killian. Both of them protested innocence in the matter of the watches, until the watches turned up hidden in the trunk. They didn't know what had happened, who had framed them or why, and considering they were already guilty of the Bug, there wasn't much chance of getting off. In the end, Killian had realized they were getting stuck with the blame one way or the other and insisted they punish him for it. Whether it was the English accent or the puppy-dog eyes or the fact that a local court reporter began writing sympathetic pieces detailing the plight of these two disadvantaged kids being given the bureaucratic runaround for a crime it wasn't obvious they had committed, it worked. Killian got a year in regular prison. Emma got six months in juvenile.

They had sworn they'd get through this, as they'd been sent to neighboring facilities in Phoenix, but that was reckoning without the wild card. By the time her release date rolled around, Emma was just over seven months pregnant and had nowhere to go, nobody she knew in Arizona, and still six months before Killian, who was trying to get time off for good behavior, was scheduled to be freed. It was the middle of summer, over a hundred degrees daily, and she was terrified of being on the streets alone, in such an obviously vulnerable condition. Maybe there were other options – mother and child halfway houses, rescue missions, Christian ministry centers – but Emma wasn't thinking clearly, and she was desperate. All she could come up with was to commit a few more petty thefts, get herself caught, and sent back to jail. That way she could be assured of a bed every night, meals, and a place to give birth that wasn't out back behind a dumpster. It was in the jail infirmary, in shackles. She didn't know why anyone thought it was necessary to shackle a woman in labor. She blacked most of it out.

She didn't think she should keep the baby. Killian didn't even know about it. She hadn't told him, had feared that if he heard, he would cut ties there and then, not be able to introduce such a complication into their already precariously unstable existence. Indeed, she'd signed most of the papers for adoption, but at the last moment she changed her mind. Asked to hold him, and the moment she looked into his face, ugly and squinched and red as it was, known she couldn't give him away.

She served out the rest of her second sentence, was released about the same time as Killian, and had been dreading the reunion. But he had been staggered, horrified and heartbroken and furious with himself and the world for letting her go through that alone, and insisted that he would spend the rest of his life making it up to her, to them. Packed up their few belongings in the Bug, which had been returned to them after failing to find any other owner of record for it, and drove them as far away from there as he could. Never once looked back.

Now they're here, in Boston.

Now, Emma supposes, ever after begins.

She'd say happy, but she doesn't know.

* * *

Killian finally finds somewhat-steady work in one of the souvenir shops that borders Navy Yard, selling nautical knickknacks to tourists and their whining kids, hands sticky with cotton candy as their parents try to drag them on the USS _Constitution_ and increase their appreciation for American history. It pays like shit, but it's enough for them to rent a grubby one-bedroom in South Boston, as long as they don't expect to have money for anything else. Emma has tried breastfeeding Henry to save on formula, but it's not really working out for either of them, leaving him screaming and hungry and her sodden and sore and angry. She loves him dearly, but she resents him as well, keeping her stuck in their apartment instead of out finding a job too. Maybe with two incomes they could get a boost, they wouldn't have to go to bed most nights with nothing in the fridge but a carton of three-day-old Chinese takeout and half a jug of orange juice. She is always, constantly hungry, gnawing in the back of her head and twisting in her stomach. No wonder she can't feed Henry, why he'd basically starve to death from her and why they have to scrape to buy him formula, if she can't even feed herself.

It's nice to be off the streets, though. Emma can't deny that. Job opportunities for a couple of broke teenage felons without a completed high school education are thin on the ground as it is, and she lives in fear that Killian's boss is going to decide that it's time to stop extending whatever charity he offered in the first place. No wonder Killian is a model employee, volunteering for all the extra shifts and walking to work if the T isn't running, rain and snow and sleet and everything else. The end result is that she barely ever sees him, except when he slides into their double bed late at night and she wakes up long enough to beg for a kiss. He gives her that, but he's usually too tired for anything else, and considering they also can't afford birth control beyond a handful of free condoms from the clinic, maybe that's not so bad. They can barely support Henry. They definitely can't handle a second unplanned pregnancy.

Emma has lived her life alone. She knows what it feels like.

She has rarely felt so alone as she does now.

* * *

Spring comes, somehow. The snow starts to melt and there's a hint of greenness and warmth in the air, and she finds a used stroller at the thrift store for $10 and sacrifices dinner that night to buy it. It turns out to be a good decision. She feels less trapped when she can get out in the fresh air with Henry, and they can also walk downtown and visit Killian at work. The sight of the sea calms her, salt breezes and seagulls wheeling overhead, and there's a secondhand bookstore nearby where she can sit for hours as long as she buys a coffee and browses. She pulls the GED prep books down and pages through them, straining her rusty brain for ninth-grade algebra (she never took ninth-grade algebra, at least never in one place or in any sort of coherent fashion) and identifying parts of speech in boring paragraphs with gender-neutral names. She joggles the stroller whenever Henry whimpers, takes ruthless advantage of the fifty-cent refills. It's fairly obvious she's there because she doesn't have anywhere else to go, but the bookstore owners turn out to be fairly accommodating about it. Eventually they come up and ask if she would like to help out in the cafe part-time at nine dollars an hour, and she jumps on it.

With this extra money, she and Killian can actually eat on a consistent basis, which does wonders for both their mood and their health. He can cut back on some of the overtime, so they can walk home together at night after work, enjoying the bustling city scene and pretending they're part of it. One night along the Charles River path, he asks her if they should get married.

Emma's startled. The thought hasn't really crossed her mind. They do have a child, they're living together in a more or less respectable fashion, and she knows that Killian is inclined to be of the opinion that this means they should be joined in matrimony. Again; old-fashioned like that. Not that she objects, per se. She just… doesn't know. It seems dangerous. She loves Killian more than her own life, and knows he feels likewise for her; among all this hardship and struggle, he is the one thing she has never doubted, and for a girl so used to everyone leaving her, Killian's constant, unqualified, rock-steady reliable love is still a gift it feels as if she can't clutch too closely, a beautiful treasure that will by its very nature be taken away. Other people get that. Not her. She doesn't trust it. Not Killian; she trusts him implicitly. She doesn't trust the world. They've started to build something here, despite everything. No use drawing attention for a thunderbolt from the heavens.

She tells Killian she needs to think about it.

Emma crams in studying for the GED between everything else on her plate, mainly through sheer stubbornness, and takes it that winter. It isn't until past the new year when she finally gets the email telling her that she passed, and she sets her sights on some online college classes. She should study something prosaic and practical, like business or finance, and she dutifully does so, no matter the fact that it bores her rigid. Henry is a year old now and she needs to think about his future. But finding time isn't easy when she has to chase after an energetic toddler and realize that she won't be able to bring him to work much longer. It wasn't a problem when he mostly stayed asleep in his stroller, but no matter how understanding her bosses are, they don't want him crashing around the shop all day.

Killian, meanwhile, is increasingly preoccupied with contacting the British Embassy in New York, trying to see if they can track down any record of his family, if one of the million Joneses applied for a visa or a residency permit and made any mention of a son named Killian. Nobody has, and this pursuit makes Emma nervous. Killian has obtained a few requisite documents showing that he exists and has a driver's license and a job and a family, but even though he's lived here as long as he can remember, he's still essentially an illegal immigrant, and Emma worries every day that the U.S. government will solve the vexing question of his origins by deporting him back to the UK and telling him to figure it out there. Especially with a felony conviction on his record, and not much of anything else. They're lucky to live in Massachusetts, with its relatively lenient laws on ex-cons, but still even here, not many employers are going to bother to look into the facts of the case, see that they were essentially unfairly framed, and got railroaded into a plea deal. They all say they're innocent, anyway. They all say it wasn't their fault.

Emma gets a job off Craigslist that lets her work from home. It's probably not the most up-and-up thing in the world, so she doesn't ask questions. It does make money, though, and for the first time in their lives, they're not existing entirely hand-to-mouth. She's barely twenty, but she feels decades older. Killian has a haggardness to him that feels like the weight of centuries. He's sick of his job, sick of hawking overpriced commemorative memorabilia, sick of being paid peanuts, sick of feeling like he can't take care of her and Henry. He does his best to be cheerful, always supporting and loving and kind, but his temper is fragile, his eyes shadowed. He's slipping away, somewhere she can't follow. He kicks around the idea that he should join the Navy, but he's not a U.S. citizen, so he can't. Who knows if he's even a British citizen. He is, in the eyes of the world, nothing at all.

It's that fall, in this tenuous environment, that Emma discovers to her shock and disquiet that she's pregnant again. Despite their precautions, she and Killian are not a couple that can live celibate forever, or even for long. They have to touch each other, have to be with each other, and trying not to has had a considerable negative effect on their mental health. Money at least will be less of an issue this time, but nothing else seems like the optimum circumstances for another baby.

Emma considers not going through with it. She considers having it and giving this one up for adoption instead. She runs through all the choices. All the things it would probably be best to do. But she so very much does not want to give this one up, leaving another child in the world without their family, and much as Henry can get on her nerves, as is the case with any parent of an almost-two-year-old, she loves him so fiercely that it frightens her. Loving something that much, like this, and giving it away… no. And no matter how much of a crap job she thinks she's often doing, Henry hasn't been irreparably screwed up yet. Maybe she can be a mother. Maybe.

She tells Killian that night. They cry together.

"I'm sorry, love," he says, as she slumps with her head on his shoulder, as they listen to the clock tick, to time speed onward. "I'm sorry."

He doesn't say for what, but it frightens her.

It turns out to be more than that. It turns out it's not just one, but two: twins. Both of them think the ultrasound technician is pulling a bad prank when she tells them, and the next week is spent in panic. Either they have to keep them both or give them both away; raising one but not the other is too unfair for either of them to contemplate. They can't make a decision now, and so they simply don't. They are both in full agreement that they want them, they want their children, they want their family whole more than anything, but they just don't know if the world is going to agree.

They are harrowed, exhausted, barely able to sleep, lying in their bed staring at the ceiling as Killian absently strokes her hair, as they deal with a grief that feels so leaden in their bones that they can't move. Emma quickly swells up to what feels like the size of a house, has cramps and cravings and bad sickness that lasts not just all morning but all day, and one or another of the kids is always kicking. She doesn't know if love is strong enough to get them through this. She's not sure about much of anything anymore.

She's eight months along – and due pretty much any day, multiples tending to come early – when the truly unthinkable happens. Killian is hit by a car leaving work late, and although he survives, he's badly injured – so badly, in fact, that they can't save the lower half of his left arm. At this, the realization is starkly, terribly plain. It was already uncertain enough if they were going to be able to deal with the twins in their current situation, and if Killian is crippled and one-handed, there's no way they possibly can. They have to give them up for adoption. They have to give them their best chance.

Emma goes into labor a few days later, and they wheel Killian in on his hospital bed so he can be with her this time. Because it's two, they're delivered by C-section, and as she's still groggy from the anesthetic, she tells them to tie her tubes. She isn't doing this ever again. She can't stand it.

It's a girl and a boy. They're perfect in every way. The idea of naming them what successful people name their children is almost an unbearable joke, but they do: Elizabeth and William. They get to hold them briefly, and manage to keep it together. They've been told that there is an adoptive mother arranged: a successful single woman, a mayor of some small town in Maine, who is willing to take both children. Very few other details are available, but Emma and Killian are allowed to learn that her name is Regina. The records will be sealed until the children are eighteen. Then, if they choose, they can decide to get into contact with their birth parents.

Emma breaks in half when they come to take the twins away. She cries, later, until she can't breathe. She can't see, speak, stand up, remember her own name. She lies flattened, as the world fades in and out around her. She feels numb, floating. Surreal.

She envies Killian then, desperately.

She would pay any price to forget.

* * *

One night after she's out of the hospital, Emma goes to sit by the Charles River and stare out at the horizon, thinking very seriously of throwing herself in and never coming up. She will be a mermaid, perhaps, or a water nymph. She wonders what it would be like to breathe without it hurting, what it would be like to sleep the night through without terrible dreams. Killian is home as well, but still bedridden, and she stays on the couch most nights anyway, to avoid disturbing him with her tossing and thrashing. Henry can tell something is wrong, in that unexpectedly perceptive way of young children, but both of his parents are such wrecks that they can barely drag themselves together to look after him. The neighbor has been drafted in most days. They beg her not to call Child Protective Services; the thought of having Henry taken away as well is something they can't stand.

Emma is still sitting there, staring bleakly at nothing, when she hears the crunch of gravel behind her, the roar of a motorbike. The engine cuts out, and footsteps come closer.

She tenses, ready to punch whoever's daring to disturb her. She might never stop. She is a coiled ball of rage and pain and grief, and she doesn't want to be touched. She doesn't want to hear anything, or deal with anyone. She starts to get up, to walk away. To shut the door, and let that be that.

An unfamiliar man's voice says, "Hello, Emma."

And despite everything, she freezes.

He says his name is August W. Booth.

He says he tried to track her down a while ago, in Portland.

He says he wasn't lying when he said she had a destiny, and all at once, wildly, she remembers that story Killian told her, about the man on the motorbike who wanted him to leave her, and the strange way they ended up framed after that, convicted for a crime that wasn't theirs, something that might well have torn them apart if they weren't so hell-bound and determined to stay together. A horrible suspicion begins to form in her head, something that she can't articulate and is terrified to. Something about him, and what he might have been doing to her all along.

She tells him to blow it out his ass, and that she never wants to see or hear from him again.

As she's jogging away, head down, tears burning in her eyes, he shouts after her desperately. "When you're twenty-eight, Emma! When you're twenty-eight, damn it! They're waiting for you, they need you! All of them! Don't you know who she is? Who _Regina_ is?"

The word strikes Emma in the back of the head like a bullet. Hating herself, she swivels around. She can barely pry her lips apart to speak, but she does. "What," she spits, low and level and lethal. _"What did you just say?"_

"Her name is Regina," August W. Booth repeats, unflinching. "The name of the town is Storybrooke. It's not a coincidence, Emma. Ignore me if you want, but you know I'm right."

Emma doesn't answer. Her tongue is made of wool, her limbs of iron, and she still can't breathe or focus or believe in what he's throwing at her, this ridiculous fantasy. Even if the names have already caught in her heart like a claw, twisted in, until she can't pull it loose. At last, she manages, "Get lost."

"Don't you want to know?" he bellows after her. "Don't you want to know who you are? Who _he_ is? Killian? He's looking in all the wrong places! He's never going to find anything at the embassy! Emma! Emma, damn it, _wait!"_

She doesn't.

She runs.

* * *

The old year ends and the new year starts and somehow things still seem to be going on. Killian is almost recovered from his wounds by now, but he's still not used to life as a one-handed man. The only prosthesis they can afford for him is a clumsy hook, which Henry thinks is amazing and which Killian tries to make the best of for his son's sake, but he's a proud man and constantly knocking things over and having to ask for help and getting stares and gawks when he goes outside is running him ragged. He won't touch Emma with it; they haven't been intimate once in the seven months since they gave the twins away, even if there's no risk of any further children. She has the distinct feeling he too might not mind jumping in the river and never coming out, and it scares her more than the impulse does in herself.

They don't talk about Elizabeth and William – or as Emma thinks of them in her head, Ellie and Liam. It's too painful. She doesn't tell Killian about the return of August Booth and the motorbike and that ridiculous, impossible story of his. Even if she doesn't forget, not for a day, the names chasing each other around and around her head. _Regina. Storybrooke. It's not a coincidence, Emma._

No. There's no point to this. She has to try to move on, she has to try to heal, to do something other than think that it wouldn't be too bad to drown. _When you're twenty-eight._ She doesn't know what to do if there's something to August's insane ramblings, and even less if there isn't. No matter how hard she tries to shut it down and chase it off, some tiny, bruised, beaten part of her heart has latched onto his fables, the idea that there might be something greater out there. It's gotten to her. False hope is the worst thing you can give someone, and as hollow and haunted as her life is right now, she knows she's vulnerable to latching onto whatever snake oil he's trying to sell her. It's a scam, she knows it's a scam, but it's too exhausting to work out how. Even Killian is no longer the traditional, uptight, play-by-the-rules gentleman he used to be. He's turned tarnished, broken, moody and bitter and brooding, increasingly talking about revenge. On who or what, she doesn't know. Just that he, like her, can no longer tolerate the unfairness of the world. Can no longer open his eyes and breathe without it hurting.

They still love each other more than anything, but living together is turning too much for them, especially when both of them are in such dark nights of the soul. They're still not married, but they agree that a trial separation is in order. They've been together since they were teenagers, and the idea of striking out on their own is even worse, but they have to.

Killian says he's going to go to Britain to try and look for his family.

Emma takes Henry and moves to New York.

* * *

The next few years are, if not happy, at least tolerable. Emma enrolls Henry in school and takes a job as a bail bondsperson, which brings in enough money that they have a decent existence. He likes it here, he has friends, he's growing up stable and well-adjusted, and that's good enough for her right now. She has thought once or twice about starting a new relationship, but she can't, not in the state she's in. There's too much baggage for any prospective mate to be asked to take on, and she'd rather keep a halfway normal home for her son, not have a revolving door of strange men in and out. If she needs a one-night stand, she can find it, discreetly. Otherwise, she's better off this way. Stronger. It was always destined to end up like this. She was right. This kind of love was never for her.

It makes sense, this way.

It's only logical.

So she tells herself, at least, when she's lying awake in the wee hours, missing her other half too badly to sleep.

* * *

Henry is ten when Emma turns twenty-eight. He's a great kid, he's the light of her life, he's come to terms with the strange and fractured nature of their existence, and she's not sure he remembers he had a father at one point, let alone a brother and sister. As far as he knows, it's him and her, the two of them a team against the world, and he's said they'll have a celebration tonight. She's not really in the mood, but she humors him. He has a cupcake with a sparkler and he's made an attempt at cleaning up the house, which she appreciates the most. She kicks off her heels – just another mark down, just another night, _what the hell do you know about family?_ before she slammed his head into the steering wheel – and smiles tiredly at her son. "Okay. Knock yourself out."

Henry sticks the star-shaped candle in the cupcake and reaches for the matches, but she takes them away from him and strikes a light. Pauses, then touches it to the candle.

"Make a wish," Henry urges her. "That's what you do, right, Mom?"

The only wish Emma has is an impossible one. She's not going to give the world the satisfaction of asking for it and then letting it be stamped out, but if this moment is anything else than a seductive lie, if August Booth was anything else than a crazy person and a liar, if all this time and all this heartbreak has been for anything in the least, she has to do it now.

She pauses, then closes her eyes tight. Wishes with everything she is, and blows the candle out.

Silence, still. Nothing. Naturally.

And then, a knock on the door.


	2. II

The road. Emma has to keep looking at the road, the road and nowhere else, even though it's a sleepy two-lane highway out in the boondocks where they haven't passed another car for miles, leading straight as an arrow through thick old-growth New England forest. She's driving, after all. It deserves her full attention, especially with Henry sacked out in the back, having played everything on his phone twice and finally falling asleep with another four hours to go. As much as the beeping and pinging and clicking annoyed her, she was grateful for it as well. As long as Henry was awake, she didn't have to say a word. As long as Henry was awake, she was safe.

It's been ten minutes of nothing but Henry's soft snoring and the hum of the tires on the pavement before she finally speaks. "So," she says. "You came back."

Killian nods, not quite looking at her. She doesn't appear to be the only one who's been dreading this moment. For all this is heartbreakingly familiar – how often have they driven like this in the Bug, awake while Henry slept, them against the world? – it's never been like this. He looks almost entirely different. Gone is the straight-laced, clean-shaven young man, and in his place remains… the only word she can think of, however strange, is _pirate._ A pierced ear and scruff and eyeliner and black leather jacket, elaborate rings, a heavy pewter skull around his neck on a chain. He's probably joined some heavy-metal or death-goth group, the last thing she'd imagine Killian – her Killian, at least, the one who winced whenever she said _fuck_ – to be capable of. But that was then. She doesn't know this one at all. It's been over half a decade since they've seen each other. Maybe three emails the entire time. They haven't kept in touch. They've both been running.

"Aye," he agrees, both of them stating the obvious to get out of digging anything deeper. She can tell, however, he wants to talk. The road. She needs to keep her eyes on the road, and not him. Even if this new look twists her stomach into watery knots, makes her heart flutter and her knees weak, until she wants to pull the car over and attack him. "I've… I've missed you, Emma. I should never have stayed away from you and the boy so long."

Emma pretends to adjust the rearview mirror, which doesn't need it. She still doesn't know why she agreed to do this. Told Henry that this was Killian, just one of her clients, that they had a quick job up in a little town in Maine and then they'd be heading back to New York. He probably didn't need to pack more than a week's worth of clothes (though her son had wanted to know why, exactly, Killian was wearing _that,_ to which he responded in a distinctly stung fashion that why was Henry wearing _that?_ ) Emma has to bite her lip at the memory, and then another: Killian sitting up in bed while two-year-old Henry played with his hook, the only time she'd seen him smile in months. No sense springing that on the kid now. Not when she can't be sure this is anything more than, indeed, a quick job. A mundane task. She'll do – whatever she's supposed to do – and then Killian will leave again. Or she will. She knows by now. It's inevitable.

"So," she says, choosing to ignore his last remark. "Do you know exactly what we're supposed to be doing in this – in this Storybrooke?" She says it casually, as if she's never heard the name before, as if there hasn't been a missing part of her soul shaped in the word for years. Two, in fact.

"Aye," Killian says again. "You're… you're not likely to believe me, though."

Emma snorts humorlessly. "Just try."

"Very well." He reaches down to the leather satchel at his feet, and pulls out a book, a handsomely coffee-table-sized volume bound in brown leather, creamy heavy pages edged in gold. In the brief glow of a passing streetlight, Emma can see that the gilt-embossed title is _Once Upon a Time._ "It's – rather literally – a long story."

Emma sweeps a hand at the empty, dark highway in front of them. "We've got all the time in the world."

* * *

The eastern horizon is starting to turn rose-pink by the time he's finished, as Emma is trying to take in everything he's telling her – a terrible curse, a town full of people who have forgotten who they are, that she is the daughter of (of all the ridiculous things) _Snow White and Prince Charming,_ that the reason he never found anything about his family at the British Embassy is because he's from this other world too, this Enchanted Forest, fell down a portal when he was sixteen and was spat up on Earth with no memories – and make a decision as to whether this is actually what is going on, or if it's just some kind of delusional coping mechanism he's invented. Maybe this is how he can justify giving the twins away. It occurs to her for the first time that he thinks if he just hadn't gotten hit by that car, if he hadn't been so badly injured, if he hadn't lost his hand, they could have kept them. That he puts the guilt on himself for it, and what happened to them. That he doesn't think he – or she – could ever possibly forgive him.

No wonder he's run to the solace of a fairytale. Things are supposed to work out there. The heroes are supposed to be beautiful, the villains hideous, the morals simple, and the endings happy. Yet looking at him in his black leather, the hook resting with studied casualness on his leg, the truth of what they always were to each other – _lost boy, lost girl_ – Emma thinks that, were she to believe his tale about everyone being a storybook character who doesn't remember who they are, she knows who he is – or who he would have become, if he hadn't fallen down that portal and met her. If he was Peter Pan before, the boy, then beyond all doubt now he's become Captain Hook, the man. Has been in search of that land where time stops, where children don't grow up and leave you, some dark demented fantasia dream. _Neverland._ She wonders abruptly if it's real too.

She wants to tell him he's just making this up.

She wants to tell him that even if he isn't, she has no idea how to do this.

Instead she says, barely more than a whisper, "Oh, Killian." Reaches down, reaches over, and for a brief moment, takes his hook in her hand. Then just as quickly, lets go.

She wants to forgive him, or at least she thinks. She wants to let him in. But that is even more of a great and terrible mystery than cursebreaking, and far more dangerous to her, to her heart, to Henry. To everything she's tried so hard to keep together, in these long years without him. Without herself.

They pass a green-and-white road sign, _Welcome to Storybrooke_ , five minutes later.

* * *

It's impossible to envision, at least on the surface, a more picture-perfect New England hamlet. Everything appears tidy and well-run and happy, everyone seems to know each other's names, disperse busily about their days – indeed, it's _so_ appealing that Emma begins to suspect something Stepford Wife-like must be lurking under the surface, terrible evil curse or otherwise. She still doesn't know what to believe, if she wants it to be true or not. On the one hand, it's tempting to blame the darkness and struggle of her life on it, that it's always been out of her control and she can feel safely absolved from any of her own failures. The rest of her, however, resists it. Doesn't want to think that she's a helpless pawn on some vast cosmic chessboard, that she has no say in her own fate, that everything she's tried to be, that she's believed in, were merely prescribed for her at the outset. She wants to say that she's Emma Swan. That it matters. Not that there's, to quote another scoundrel, some all-powerful mystic energy field controlling her destiny. She might be supposed to play Luke Skywalker for this place, but there's too much Han Solo in her to give in without a fight.

She and Henry take one room at a place called Granny's Bed and Breakfast (and Diner). Killian takes another. She sleeps all day and the next night, and when she gets up, heads outside to discover that – of course, small-town police having nothing else to do besides being zealously conscientious in carrying out their tiniest and most annoying tasks to the letter – the sheriff is there writing a ticket for the Bug, which is apparently parked in the loading zone. She gives him a talking-to, tells him she's new in town, give her a damn second, she'll move it, and it doesn't look like anything is being loaded, anyway. When he finally retreats, she turns around to find Killian watching her with a funny look on his face. "What?"

"Nothing, love," he says. "Only that that's David Nolan – or should I say, Prince Charming. Or rather – "

"My father," Emma completes. Her stomach turns a sickening flip, and despite herself, the fact that she doesn't buy it, not entirely, she can't help but sneak another glance in the departing lawman's direction. He looks like the type, she has to admit. "If the book is anything besides… I don't know, something you decided to work on to get through… get through things?"

He doesn't look away, but she can tell that hurts. "I'm not making this up, Emma."

Emma is about to say something else, but at that moment, the schoolbus pulls up, the door of the diner swings open, and an immaculately attired, black-haired businesswoman, heels and red lipstick and tailored coat, strides out, holding the hands of two children about six or seven years old. The girl has long blonde curls and a Burberry plaid scarf, a stylish little backpack, and her lip is visibly quivering, whereas the boy – black-haired, blue-eyed, sporting a Star Wars lunch box and flashing lightsaber sneakers – is raring to go. He is clearly set to jump on board, and looks at his sister in exasperation when she continues to dawdle. "Come _on,_ Ellie, let's _go!"_

Both Emma and Killian turn to stone on the spot.

"Liam!" their mother calls. "Behave yourself! And look after her!"

The boy rolls his eyes and promises he will, then crashes aboard the bus as if it might leave without him, while the little girl is still sniffing. Her mother kneels to give her a kiss, promises that it won't be long at all and she can't wait to hear about the day, then escorts her to the bus, sees her aboard, and waves as it pulls off down the street. It's only then that she turns around, sees Emma and Killian still looking as if they've been broad-axed, and smiles – politely, but with an edge. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"

"I… " Emma struggles to regain control of herself, when she can still hear those names in the air – _Ellie and Liam,_ just as she's thought of them all this time. "I don't think so. We… just got here."

The woman continues to regard her coolly. "We don't get visitors very often in Storybrooke. Where are you from? How long are you planning to stay?"

"We're… . just passing through." Emma makes herself smile in return. "Only a few days."

She thinks the other woman relaxes fractionally, but doesn't drop her guard entirely. "How do you do, then," she says, stepping forward. "I'm Regina Mills. The mayor."

Emma has known that, has known it from the moment she saw her with the kids, and knows as well who, according to the book, her children's adoptive mother is supposed to be. The woman in front of her doesn't look like a monster. Neat, well-groomed, made up, put together, clearly a competent parent, not an Evil Queen. She doesn't want Regina to think she's here to take the twins away; she can't, she made that choice, even if it's stabbing in her gut harder than she ever imagined. Doesn't know if Regina knows their birth parents, if she'd consider them a threat if she did, but she's still standing with her hand out, and a reciprocal introduction cannot be gotten away from. "I'm… Emma. Emma Swan."

Something may flicker in the mayor's dark eyes at that, but it's hard to tell. She's all graciousness as she shakes Emma's hand and welcomes her to town, though her gaze lingers censoriously on Killian, decked out in his leather and eyeliner and clearly embodying the very idea of Bad Influence on Youth. She says she needs to get to work, ducks back inside Granny's for her coffee, and clicks off in her heels.

"Bloody hell," Killian says, half to himself, after a moment. He clearly was no more prepared for that than Emma was, and for that instant, she can feel that flicker of their old solidarity, back in the days when all they had was each other. He doesn't look at her as he says this; clearly, he's not necessarily expecting that she wants to share the burden, that the best thing for either of them is to let their guard down and commiserate, when they've never once talked about Ellie and Liam before. _She looks like me. He looks like him._ Emma is still rattled herself, and needs some coffee as well, extra-strong. Without an answer, she goes up the steps and heads inside.

* * *

Emma does her best to find out what she can about the twins without being an outright creeper. She isn't sure what she's expecting. It's clear that Regina rests unquestioningly atop the social hierarchy here, and it would be easy for her kids to be a spoiled little prince and princess, coddled brats who are used to getting their way no matter what, but while opinions may be mixed on the mayor herself, nobody has a bad word to say of William and Elizabeth Mills. Everyone is in apparently universal agreement that they're sweet, well-behaved, polite, respectful – and, so far as anyone can tell, happy. They say please and thank you and always look as if they stepped out of the pages of a Benetton ad. Whatever her other flaws, Regina must be doing a good job as a mother.

Emma quietly digs up the Mills family's home address and drives out when she's sure Regina will be at work and the twins at school. She parks at the curb and looks up at it, this handsome white-painted colonial mansion with columns and black shutters, well-kept lawn and big trees. She wonders which of the windows belong to their bedrooms. There's a boy's bike on the porch, a box of toys. It's clear that Regina has never had to decide between feeding herself or the kids, never had to come up with lies to tell them about why they don't have what other kids have. Has probably bought them plenty of Christmas and birthday presents, given them a comfortable upper-middle-class childhood in which they've wanted for nothing. Certainly far better than they would have had in that small, crammed, grimy one-bedroom apartment in Boston. Just as she wanted for them: their best chance. She's looking at it now. It worked out. It should be all right. Should be all she needs to know.

Emma leans back in the driver's seat, tears brimming in her eyes. It makes no sense to torment herself like this, she knows. But she's heard nothing about Regina having a husband or partner, so she must have done all this herself. Handled the midnight feedings and the diaper changes and grocery-store tantrums and the general localized chaos of two babies, and if she managed it alone, there's a sly, insidious voice asking Emma why she couldn't do the same, even knowing that their circumstances are nothing alike. It would be different if she had been planning to give up the twins from the start, if she hadn't wanted them, if it had only been a logical choice to place them for adoption. But until the accident, until Killian lost his hand, they were still thinking, praying, that there might be a way to keep them. Maybe there was. Maybe they weren't brave enough. Maybe they missed it.

She's crying harder now, wiping her cheeks furiously on her sleeve and hoping she remembered to wear waterproof mascara, as she once more reminds herself that it's irrelevant. They were faced with a circumstance, they made a choice. The kids are clearly happy and doing well, and wishing or wondering if that could have happened with her and Killian, if their family would have stayed together, is beside the point. Selfish. But Emma Swan longs beyond words for the chance to _be_ selfish, just for once.

She shakes silently for a minute, maybe two. Then she sniffs hard, and straightens her spine. Puts the Bug into gear and rolls away from the curb. Drives back into town, and doesn't let herself look back.

It's a week and a half since they arrived in Storybrooke and Emma is getting antsy about making Henry miss any more school back in New York, when Granny (the matriarch of the diner and B&B has become an unexpected confidante, and knows instinctively how Emma likes her hot chocolate and coffee) suggests that he attend classes here, as if that's something that just happens. Emma is taken aback, babbling excuses about getting records transferred and they don't even live in the district (what district is this?) and surely there'd be assessment exams and everything else – and Granny just looks at her as if she has two heads. She says it's obvious they're going to be here for a while, and while she's happy to put them up for as long as they want, they should think about leasing an apartment. Plenty of vacant properties. Rent's reasonable. Nice place to raise kids. Emma and her husband should consider it.

"He's not my husband," Emma blurts out, too fast. "He's – we were together, once, long ago. Now, I… I don't know what exactly we are."

Granny gives her a long look. "He's Henry's father, isn't he?"

"Yes." Emma bites her lip, takes her hot cocoa with cinnamon, and turns to go, hoping this will discourage any more personal enquiry. "But Henry doesn't… doesn't know that right now. Killian and I separated when he was very young. I'd appreciate you not mentioning it to him."

Granny gives her another look, as if she has certain opinions on the wisdom of this, but is too tactful to voice them at the present moment. She holds the gaze, then turns away to the cash register.

"Like I said." She shrugs. "You should think about it."

* * *

Henry proves surprisingly receptive to the idea of going to school here, or staying a while, or doing something besides aimlessly playing on his phone; he's bored stiff. He says he misses New York, but he's a resilient and curious kid, and he still thinks this is a lark, an adventure, something that will be handled and then which will go by, so he's willing to play along. He gets dressed that morning (they're still staying at Granny's, despite her advice for them to find an apartment) shrugs on his backpack, and heads out.

Emma is in the diner that afternoon, paging through _Once Upon a Time,_ when the bus pulls up and the kids spill out – clearly, this is a small enough school district that they don't need more than one route. Her breath catches in her throat as she sees that Henry is followed off by none other than Liam Mills, the two boys clearly having hit it off like gangbusters already, Henry even pulling a binder out to show Liam his prized Pokémon collection. It's also obvious, as they sit on the bench together, that they have a more than passing physical resemblance; except for the fact that Liam is almost three years younger than Henry, they could very well be the twins instead. Emma tries to look away, only to see Granny glancing over as well – her gaze flicking between Henry, Liam, and then Emma herself. And in that moment, without a word spoken, Emma is entirely sure that the older woman knows exactly who they are.

A black, older-model Mercedes Benz pulls up a few minutes later. Regina leans out the driver's side window, beckoning angrily at her son, clearly worried and wondering why he didn't ride the bus home as he was supposed to – only to see him next to Henry and the pieces just as clearly click over in her head. She looks up, and her eyes meet Emma's through the diner's Venetian blinds, hard and narrow.

Liam, apologizing but also clearly loathe to be parted from his new friend, drags his heels into the car. The door shuts, and Regina pulls away from the curb with a squeal of tires.

Emma sits at the counter feeling leaden, wondering if she should duck out of this confrontation as well, but knowing that postponing it will only make her feel worse, until as she knew she would, Regina drives up again about twenty minutes later. She parks in the loading zone (will Sheriff Nolan ticket _her,_ one wonders?) gets out, and strides brusquely up the steps, coat snapping in the autumn wind. Pushes into the diner with a clank of bells. "Miss Swan, we need to talk."

Emma pauses, then gets up and inclines her head, with a graciousness she doesn't quite feel. Follows Regina into the corridor behind the jukebox where they can have some modicum of privacy, though she's already fairly sure that Granny overhears everything that goes on here. "Yes, Mayor Mills?"

Regina looks up at the ceiling, at the floor, back and forth, before her gaze finally lands on Emma. Her face is white, her mouth grim. "It's you, isn't it?" she says. "You're their birth mother. And Captain Guyliner with his leather and attitude, he's their father."

Emma sees no point in denying the obvious. "Yes."

Regina inhales sharply, seems about to say something, doesn't, whirls around again, and takes a moment to collect herself. Too evenly, she says, "Why are you really here?"

Emma doesn't know how to answer that. She can't think that Regina, if she's the one who cast this curse, will be thrilled to hear that she's supposed to be here to break it. She didn't come to take the twins away, as much as the ghosts of what could have been are haunting her. Finally she says, as it is after all the truth, "Killian brought me here."

"You can't have them back." Regina's lips are thin; this answer clearly confirms her worst suspicions about their presence. "You made the choice. You gave them up."

"I didn't come here to do that."

"You brought your son, though. Henry. People have eyes in their heads. Kids talk. If William and Elizabeth learn about this, it will be very upsetting for them. I'm sure neither of us want that."

"No," Emma agrees. "Neither of us do."

Regina looks unsure what to make of her compliance thus far, searching for some kind of trick, some ulterior motive. This is clearly a woman who trusts nobody and likes even fewer, and for the first time, despite the fact that Regina has given the twins a comfortable material upbringing, taught them manners and dresses them well and clearly does love them, Emma wonders just how insular their world is. Not that it is any more of her concern than it was a moment ago, but it awakens something stubborn in her. A kind of awkward sympathy, as well. She thinks she has more patience with the other woman, an understanding, due to her own struggle to raise Henry, than she would if she'd come up here completely alone, a scarred, walls-up free agent who was determined to bond with nothing and no one. She doesn't _want_ to be enemies with Ellie and Liam's mother, doesn't want this to be the only taste she leaves in their mouths. She's still planning on going, after all. New York. That's what she wants. Safe.

"Henry and Liam are friends," she says after a moment. "They're boys. They're not going to notice anything. I assure you, Ms. Mills, I'm not staying forever. This is just a temporary arrangement."

"Temporary for what?" Regina doesn't give up easily. "You and the handless wonder are just… coming here for a vacation? Couples therapy? Dr. Hopper's office is down the street. I'm sure he'd be happy to deal with you two and your issues. But again, Miss Swan. _Why here?"_

Emma shrugs. "Maybe it's fate."

"I don't believe in fate."

"Well then." Emma lifts her chin. "Maybe I chose to."

She knows that's not going to be enough to get Regina off her tail, and it isn't. But while they're having their own issues, Henry and Liam continue to be the very best of friends, and there's only so many times they can grudgingly agree to meet to let their sons play together, sitting in stiff silence while the boys run and shout, before it gets tiring to keep up the low-grade animosity. Emma senses at times that Regina almost wants to talk to her, to ask if Liam shares anything with his brother, even as she's fighting the overwhelming impulse to do the same. Wants to know absolutely everything about this kid and his sister, from their favorite foods to their nightmares to how much trouble they cause at bathtime, but she knows that will violate the agreement that they, word unspoken, seem to have arrived at. As long as she doesn't mention anything about the twins, about a curse or any possible reason for her presence other than a brief visit, Regina warily tolerates her and doesn't make any move to obstruct or thwart her. She can see Liam this way – and Ellie, who is often brought along and plays happily by herself while the boys get into trouble. But if Emma ever breaks the conversational boundaries, Regina will withdraw, take the twins home and forbid any further play dates for at least a week. It's a capricious and delicate arrangement, and it doesn't feel fair, but Emma knows she can't push too hard.

It's been over a month since they've arrived in Storybrooke, and after stubbornly staying at Granny's until it became impractical, she's finally broken down and rented an apartment. It's next door to one Mary Margaret Blanchard, who also happens to be Henry's teacher at school, and this time Emma doesn't even need Killian to tell her who she's supposed to be. She's read the book too, several times by now, and her heart skips a beat. _Snow White._ Not quite what she expected. Then again, nothing is.

She's tried to use this time to think what she wants to do about Killian, if she wants to invite him to move in again, but considering Henry is still in the dark about his parentage, that feels like too far, too fast. They've been circling in and out of each other's orbits for a while now, and while Killian is still polite about her constant deflections, it's clearly getting on his nerves. He's ditched the pirate garb for something a bit more sedate, leather jackets with zippers and skinny jeans, is doing his best to fit in, although Emma has noticed that someone – Mr. Gold, the mysterious recluse who runs the pawnshop and seems to have his fingers in most of Storybrooke's pies – doesn't like him at all. Killian professes himself baffled by this; says he's never laid eyes on the man in his life. She doesn't think he's lying, but there's something here which still disturbs her.

Finally, because Emma isn't one to sit around impotently, she goes to ask Gold to his face. Why he doesn't like Killian. What on earth everyone seems to be hiding.

"Why, dearie." Gold placidly polishes a bronze sextant. "Because there are many ways something as vast as the curse could have turned out, all the possible paths that could have been, and . ." He raises one shoulder in a shrug that couldn't give less of a fuck. "In one not so very far from here, your – I believe the term is _baby daddy_ – actually became Captain Hook, not just this pathetic brooding cut-rate version of him, and was my most dread enemy. A dangerous, evil, and ruthless maniac who left countless lives in ruins, and cared not in the least for anyone except himself and his revenge. Not the sort of person I, or indeed any sensible individual, wants lurking around this town. He bears close watching, in short." His eyes glitter. "Is it true you procreated _twice_ with him? Or does that count as three times?"

"Shut up." Emma's rocked, both by the fact that Gold is the only person she has heard, apart from Killian, say that there is in fact a curse, and the fact that Gold clearly also knows who Ellie and Liam's real parents are. "You're saying you hate him not even for anything he's actually done, but for something that another version of him _could_ have done? You know that makes no sense."

"As a matter of fact, Miss Swan." Gold puts the sextant aside and leans casually on the counter. "I thought that if anyone, you would be the most likely to understand. Seeing as you also appear to hate him for everything he _could_ do to you."

Emma opens and shuts her mouth, feeling punched. "I don't _hate_ him."

"Call it what you will, but if you are justified in treating him as you do for realizing the danger he poses, then so am I. Rather in a different fashion, of course." Gold turns his back on her; clearly the conversation is over. "Good day, dearie."

* * *

Emma is pensive and troubled on the walk back to their apartment, wanting to find a way to refute Gold's accusations but uncomfortably unable to find one. She's still distracted as she climbs upstairs, pushes through into the dining room – then stops.

Henry's bent over _Once Upon a Time,_ reading intently with a frown on his face. He doesn't hear her entrance for a moment, then does. Looks up at her as if he hasn't quite seen her before, can't quite think how to address this stranger. Then he says, "Is this what you were talking about? The job we're here for? This… this curse?"

Instinctively, Emma wants to deny it. Protect him. Especially after Gold all but confirmed it earlier, and she holds out her hands. "Henry, there – there isn't actually a curse, that's not – you can't believe – "

"Really?" Henry slams the book shut and gets to his feet angrily. "What else can't I believe? When were you going to tell me that? When were you going to tell me that Killian – that Mr. Jones – he's my dad. Isn't he. Isn't he?"

Emma's breath shrivels in her throat. "Did he – who told – "

"I'm not stupid." Henry faces her defiantly, hands planted on his hips. "I figured it out. It's in the book as well, you know. Your story. All of it. The fact that Liam and Ellie, that they're my…" He is wrestling with the words, struggling with the realization that a ten-year-old's world is falling apart around him, and everyone he trusted has lied to him. "That you gave them up!"

"Henry!" It comes out as half a sob, a gasp, as Emma reels back as if he's hit her. The tears bubble up, starting to spill down her cheeks, as she gets to her knees and reaches for him, but he rips away. "Henry, please, listen to me. Please – when that happened, when Killian and I – "

"I bet you have another story all ready to go for this one too." Henry's mouth has screwed up as if he's trying desperately not to lose his composure, chin wobbling, and for a heart-stopping moment she sees the pirate in him, the dangerous man Gold was describing, the one who would happily burn down everything and everyone in his way. "Well, you know what? I don't care! I don't care!"

With that, he snatches the book and runs past her, grabbing his coat and backpack, and pelting down the stairs beyond. She remains frozen for a moment more, then turns and runs after him, but even as she's emerging into the early evening, he's out of sight. She hurries back upstairs to get her car keys, thinking she'll have to track him down in the Bug, but as she's stepping into the apartment, a sudden and impossible wall of grief overtakes her, crashes into her like a tidal wave and brings her to her knees, until she's on all fours and sobbing so hard she's almost retching, until she can do nothing but curl into a ball of agony. She rocks back and forth, wanting to make it stop somehow, make it stop, but she doesn't know how and she doesn't know how and she doesn't know, she doesn't know. She can just cry until she feels utterly spent, used up and wrung out, hiccupping miserably and rubbing at her eyes.

It's getting dark. Henry should be getting home soon; even as mad as he must be, he has to cool down eventually. And even in a town as safe as this one appears to be, quite a change from New York, she doesn't like the idea of him out by himself. She has to get the keys, do what she was supposed to. Dully, she levers herself to her feet. She feels a thousand years old.

Just then, her phone rings.

Emma looks at it in dread; she doesn't want to talk to anyone right now. But the name on the caller ID is MILLS R, and she didn't even know that Regina had her number, which is unsettling enough to make her frown. She gulps hard and answers, trying not to sound how she feels. "H-hello?"

"Miss Swan?" Regina's voice is sharper than usual, but with something different than its usual asperity. She sounds almost… afraid. "Are Liam and Ellie over there?"

"What? No." Emma's knees feel suddenly weak. "Why – would they be here? I was – in fact I was just about to go out and look for Henry, he… he's angry with me and I don't think it…"

"You didn't do something… foolish?" Regina sounds as if she thinks this is exactly what happened.

"No." The last thing she wants right now is Regina, who seems to be practically perfect in every way – at least when it comes to being a mother, her and her big house and her money and everything that Emma and Killian could never have given the twins, a reminder of it every day – having a go at her. "I don't know where they are."

Even as she says it, a certain cold foreboding is creeping down her spine. She hangs up abruptly, not bothering to apologize, and trots down the stairs into the deepening night. Gets in the Bug, drives up and down the street, pausing to stick her head out and yell, but there's no answer. Even as she sees headlights coming down in the other direction, recognizes Regina's Mercedes, knows then that she's doing the same thing, and cold certainty crashes into her stomach like a cannonball.

Henry, Ellie, and Liam are gone.


	3. III

The glow of the three flashlights strafes the dark woods, throwing gremlin shadows from the twisted trees and turning every fallen log or rusted fender or marshy culvert into a potential threat, as owls hoot in the branches and Emma can hear water running in the distance, fast by the sounds of things, but nothing human other than them. "Henry!" She sweeps the light up and down, back and forth. Things seem to skitter just out of its beam. "Henry, where are you?"

"Henry!" Killian's shout is almost as raw, holding a lantern on high – clearly the first thing he could grab from the docks, where he's taken to living aboard one of the boats. She almost went to go look for their son without telling him, but knew it was unfair, that she needed his help. If they find Henry, she tells herself, she'll apologize for everything, she'll fess up. But she must have read that damn book half a hundred times by now, and there was nothing about her and Killian in it. None of their story, much less the truth about Henry and the twins. She can't think of any other way Henry would have learned it, and she doesn't feel as if it's something he would have the presence of mind to lie about. Besides, Henry isn't by nature a fibber. Has _Once Upon a Time_ changed itself somehow? Rewritten its contents, revealed its darkest secrets? Emma is still hesitant to believe in this, in magic, in a curse, but she can't explain how else he would have known. _I haven't told him. I haven't told him anything._ But why now? Why reveal the truth to a ten-year-old boy, and not to her?

An unwelcome voice remarks that it wouldn't have done any good. She knows the truth, of course. She's known it all along. But that was never sufficient to make her _do_ anything about it. To a fearless kid with a strong sense of adventure and a penchant for books and stories and imagination… that's different.

"Henry!" she calls again, forcing down the nervous clamor of her heart. "HENRY!"

"Elizabeth!" Next to them, Regina isn't really dressed for a nighttime forage in the forest – heels, pantyhose, business suit – but she's keeping pace and then some. "William! You are in so much trouble, young lady, young man! This isn't funny, come out!"

No answer. Still the distant water, dripping, and the sigh of the wind.

Regina wheels on Emma, lips pulled back in something close to a snarl. "I swear – if my children have been hurt by whatever damn-fool delusion your son dragged them into – that _all_ of you tried to – "

" _They're my kids too!"_ At last, after everything, Emma has had enough of this, of abiding by Regina's rules as long as it meant she got to see the twins, of shutting her mouth and keeping her head down, as if it was nothing more than a regular playdate, of pretenses and playacts and lies, lies, lies. "I don't care what you think of that, lady! They are, and I want to find them just as much as you do! And you better listen to me, Mayor Mills. If the kids are hurt by playing around with this – with this _curse_ of yours… "

She can barely spit out the word, but she does, and the look on Regina's face is enough to see that hit where it was supposed to. The other woman breathes, "Who said anything about a curse?"

"Gold." Emma faces her, unflinching, unblinking. "I doubt either of us likes him very much, but I also think we both know he's telling the truth."

Regina husks a low, dry laugh. "When did you become such a believer, Miss Swan? It's not as if it's a habit in the rest of your life. Or tell me, do you also now want to – "

"Bloody hell!" That's Killian, looking angrier than Emma has ever seen him, face and eyes dark as thunderclouds. "While you two stand here blaming each other, the lads and the lass are out there somewhere, and something terrible will happen if they wander beyond the town lines. So if you'll _excuse_ me, I'm getting on!"

With that, he spins on his heel and storms off, lantern waving through the trees like a ghost from an older era, as Emma and Regina pause, shake themselves, and run after him, catching up on either side. She'd like a better time to do this, more privacy, any time that wasn't them in desperate hunt for their missing children, but she realizes by now she might not get another chance. She lays a hand on his arm. "Killian, we… we need to talk."

"I've found when a woman says that, I'm rarely in for a pleasant conversation." He doesn't break stride, or look at her. "And I've been living at the docks, five minutes from the flat you rented with the boy. But as you couldn't bestir yourself to walk that far to see me, I'm not sure this is a good idea at all."

Emma flinches. Knows she deserved that, but it still hurts. "Killian, I… it's been a long time, I didn't think we could just jump back in, that we should – "

"Take it slow." The bitterness in his voice is fathomless. "Why do you think I've given you all this space, all this time? You agreed to come here with me, I thought that meant something. Not that you could get on ignoring me more effectively. Bloody hell, whatever it is you want, just tell me. Not this holding me at arm's length, to see you but not speak to you or touch you or bloody anything. The mayor's not the only one with unfair rules, love! You can see – can see them as long as you pretend they don't mean anything to you, and you're doing the exact bloody same thing to me. Well, I can't pretend any more, and I won't. Kiss me or kill me or tell me you want to marry me or never see me again, but do _something!_ I can't live in bloody purgatory anymore!"

They're trying to keep it down, even though Regina has drawn several lengths ahead of them and doesn't appear to be listening. But at that, his voice rises almost to the edge of a shout, shattering and echoing, and he stops short, dragging his hand across his face. "Pardon, love," he says, cool and even. "As I said, not the time for it. Let's find the runaways."

With that, he starts moving again, jogging to catch up with Regina, as Emma follows more slowly. Her head is spinning, the ground feeling as if it's tilted under her feet, as if nothing in the world can be pinned into its usual place and the cupboard has been pushed over, the dishes fallen out to smash on the floor. It's like she is trying to walk on her hands instead of her feet, breathe through her heart instead of her lungs, while her lungs themselves are crushed in the grip of a giant hand, twisting and twisting. Nothing is real and nothing is right and ultimately, curse or no curse, it's ultimately not some great dark magic that has visited wrack and ruin on her life. A good part of it, yes – but in this, in the choices she has made, in what she could do to save herself or drown, she is the one who has been afraid. Who hasn't dared. Who has turned from the light when it poured in, for fearing to burn.

She chokes down a sob, rubbing at her eyes with her knuckles. The choices she's made with Killian, that they made with the twins, can't be ascribed to a dark curse. They are the ones who have lost their way, and their happiness has been destroyed as a result. _Gone. Gone._ No getting it back, all these missing years, all this lost time. It doesn't work that way.

But perhaps, maybe, there will be time to make new ones. When they find Henry.

If they find Henry.

* * *

Long ago, Emma and Killian used to play the birthday game. They reasoned that since they didn't know his actual birthday, it could theoretically be any day, and if they celebrated it every so often, they would have decent odds of doing so close to the real date. Those were the best days of the month. Killian would find a way to get them some kind of treat, Emma would sing him "Happy Birthday," and he would always close his eyes and wish aloud that a beautiful woman would kiss him – one which, of course, always came true. Sometimes she would almost feel guilty that he was spending something as serious as a birthday wish on something that he could have whenever he asked, as it seemed self-evident to her then that it would never be something out of his reach, never be something to come between them or to be desired as anything outside the natural order of things. One night, she told him shyly that perhaps he should wish for something different this time. Just in case.

He wanted to know why he would ever do that. That it was a miracle to him that he knew this one would come true. That he didn't need to wish for anything else, because it would never matter as much. That as long as he had this, and he never took it for granted, they'd be all right.

Thinking about that now makes Emma's heart ache until she almost can't stand it. She wonders if he ever found out when his birthday was, if there's no direct equivalent in this Enchanted Forest they're supposed to be from, or if he just kept celebrating it at random during the years they were apart, if he kept wishing for a kiss from a beautiful woman all that time. Maybe he got it. She'd be a fool to think he lived entirely celibate during their separation; after all, she had a one-night stand or three. It would only be fair if he did, but the thought twists her in half with jealousy until she almost can't breathe. She's only been separated from him physically, she realizes. Mentally, emotionally, in every other way, she remains inextricably intertwined with him. And she wants it back. She wants it more than anything.

Reaching Regina, she can see that the other woman's shoulders are hunched and drawn, lines of worry carved into her brow. It doesn't make Emma feel particularly warmly for her, but hearing Killian's accusations that she's been doing the same thing toward him that Regina has been doing toward her, she allows herself to recognize that Regina is as worried as she is. That, for now, is something to build on. "Is there somewhere the kids might go?" she says, low-voiced. "Somewhere the twins might take Henry – show him?" The disappearances can't be coincidental. Either they're together, or someone took them. _Gold?_ But what would he want with them, apart from being an asshole?

Regina thinks for a moment, mouth still grim. Then she says, "The troll – toll bridge. This way."

Emma and Killian follow in cautious single file as Regina leads them through a dense thicket of underbrush, branches and brambles catching at their legs as they swear under their breath and hack and struggle through them. Then they skid out onto a scatter of gravel and down a river bank, as a graffitied highway overpass rises out of the shadows. Here's the source of the running water, tumbling over stones, and on the far side, they can just see three small figures, sitting in a circle.

" _Henry!"_ Emma breaks into a run, Regina and Killian hot on her heels, as they splash through the knee-deep current and emerge dripping and furious. Sure enough, it's their missing parties, looking guilty as they try to scatter, but are swiftly collared by their respective parents. "Henry! What on earth are you doing? You scared us sick!"

Henry wriggles out of her grasp, staring her down with an expression that is the spitting image of Killian. Regina is hugging Elizabeth and scolding her in the same breath, and Liam looks as if he's about to make another break for it, but Killian reaches out and grabs his arm. Emma can see the small shock it sends through him, as it's the first time he's touched his younger son since those terrible few minutes just after the twins' birth, when they held them for the first and only time and then had to give them away. "You'll be staying here, young man."

Liam starts, glances up, and frowns. "Aren't you that pirate?"

Killian tenses but doesn't answer, looking over to the women. Regina, having assured herself that Ellie and Liam are in one piece, looks set to breathe her fire on Henry, but he's standing apart from them, still clutching the book. All at once he says defiantly, "We were trying to break the curse."

"What?"

"The curse." Henry swivels around to face them. "I told Ellie and Liam I needed their help, and they took me here, because I said that in the book Snow and Charming met when she saved him from the trolls at the bridge. So I thought maybe we could do it here. Break it."

Emma looks sharply at the twins, wondering what Henry told them – the truth about their parents? – but it's clear from their faces that they thought this was just a lark, an adventure, the kind of make-believe that all kids play – follow their friend out to a mysterious bridge at night to break a magical curse. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to be treated with suspicion. The world is a simple place when you're seven years old.

Regina is still clearly dying to have words with Henry about his idea of appropriate recreation with her children, but Emma glares at her, and she snaps her mouth shut. "Well," the mayor says instead, tone clipped and brusque. "Let's just chalk it up to youthful folly, be glad that no one was hurt, and forget about all this. Elizabeth, William, you're not going to be allowed to play outside after dark again, and if I find that you've run off again, I'll – "

She pulls at her daughter's arm, but Ellie remains rooted to the spot. She's chewing her lip, frowning. Then she says, "Henry told us that Miss Blanchard and Mr. Nolan were Snow White and Prince Charming. That they were his grandparents, and they didn't remember." She looks at Emma directly, those green eyes that are a mirror of her own. "That you're their daughter. Is it true?"

Emma opens and shuts her mouth. "The – the sheriff?" she says weakly. "The schoolteacher?" As if there can be any other. "I… don't know. I suppose it's – "

"Elizabeth Caroline Mills." The full name has made its appearance; Regina really must be mad. "We're going home now, and I'm not going to hear any more of this – "

There's a low chuckle from behind them. The measured tap of a cane on the fallen carpet of leaves and pine needles and mulch, as the beam of a fourth flashlight joins the party. "Family disagreement?" Mr. Gold's eyes glitter ferally as he moves forward. "I do hope it's nothing serious."

Regina, off her footing, bites back her words and glares poisonously at him, which he takes without turning a hair. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"It's a free country, isn't it?" Gold shrugs. "As a matter of fact, I was driving past when I happened to hear raised voices. Being a dutiful citizen and loyal subject, I pulled over to see if I could offer any assistance. I was quite surprised to find this unlikely confederation apparently having a fun campout in the woods. Only without the camp, or indeed the fun. The woods, though, certainly."

"Leave," Regina orders. "This isn't your affair."

"Oh, we both know very well it is, dearie." Gold leans on his cane like a victorious gladiator upon his sword, then turns to Emma. "So you've gotten your boy to believe as well, I see. Though if my hunch is correct, I suspect you individually had nothing to do with it."

"Mr. Gold?" Henry's mouth hangs open as he puts the pieces together, then looks wildly down at the book, then back at the pawnbroker. "You're him. Rumplestiltskin. The one who made all this happen. But… but why?"

"I see you've inherited your father's habit of asking dangerous questions, laddie." Gold smiles, even less comfortingly than before. "But only since it's worth it to see Her Majesty squirm, I'll answer. This – all this – the curse, everything – was meant for a very specific purpose. To find someone in this world. And in nearly all of the arrangements, it worked out. I found him. But I didn't. I won't ever. And it's the fault of someone close by. Someone very close by, in fact."

Emma doesn't like where this is going. She moves a few steps closer to Killian. "Gold. We'll talk about this later."

"We'll talk about it now." Gold straightens up, and removes something from his cane. "You see, I don't have much power left, and this will likely take what I do have. But it will be worth it. Because, Miss Swan, you were never meant to meet our mutual friend here in the first place. It was supposed to be someone else. It was supposed to be him. You were supposed to bring him to me." The pawnbroker's eyes are alive with malice and madness. "My son. It was supposed to be _my son._ Not him. Not this worthless, one-handed, lying, no-good… _pirate."_

And with that, he flourishes the object in his hand – something slender and dark, something like a stick or – if they're going with the magic theme – a wand. Black as ink. He points it at Killian like a gun.

For a long moment, everyone seems completely frozen. Then – Emma sees it unfold as if in stages, step by step, a stop-motion animation that has become caught in the frame. Sees Gold's arm move back to do whatever horrible thing he has in mind, feels her mouth open to scream, sees Killian grabbing Liam and Henry and shoving them out of the way, and sees something, something vast and consuming and darker than the darkest night, flaring from the tip of the wand. Sees it stretch and expand and splash like paint thrown on a canvas, falling and falling and falling and falling

_and falling_

* * *

Emma opens her eyes and she's in the crappy apartment back in Boston and this has all been a terrible dream, but it's over now and she gulps down air and sobs for a few moments until she can recover herself. She reaches for Killian's sleeping form, wants to pull him close, wants to wake and find comfort in his arms, but when she rolls him toward her, it is a strange man she's never seen before. "Emma?" he says sleepily. "What is it? It's late, go back to sleep."

She stares at him in confusion and terror. She doesn't understand. He reaches for her again, but she pushes him away, swings her legs over the side of the bed and retreats into the bathroom and barricades herself in, trying to remember what happened in her dream, if perhaps this is just a new one. Henry, she needs to go check on Henry, see if he's somehow been affected by this nefarious nocturnal phenomenon, but when she gets up and opens the door, she realizes that this _isn't_ their apartment, this isn't her bedroom. It's a crappy motel, neon lights leaking through the polyester curtains and the rumble of traffic on the interstate, a no-account place on the way to nowhere where truckers and hookers keep each other in business, a hole in the drywall and probably cockroaches. And besides, Henry isn't here. She gave him up. She gave him up a long time ago.

Emma's knees almost give out as she clutches at the wall, and suddenly, as quick as it came, the filthy hotel room is gone, whirling off down a long hall of darkened mirrors. She is starting to see things, things which haven't happened to her, but are close enough to what did to make her stare. She's with this other man – the name floats to her as if through a haze – _Neal._ They're hitting up convenience stores, they're living in the Bug, and life, although morally dubious, is good. But then he's not there, then it's her retrieving the twenty thousand dollars in watches from a locker in the train station, and he's still not there… he's still not there, and she doesn't understand. He's not supposed to leave, Killian never left, not for that. Not until later, when they couldn't bear it any longer, when she was suffering silently in her fortress and never came down to open the gates, until finally they had no other choice. And even then, he was the one who came back to her. No, he can't be gone. He can't be.

And yet. Emma can feel herself starting to forget, memories tumbling loose like jewels chipped free of their settings, and she clutches at them frantically. The twins – what are their names, what, what? She's suddenly not sure they existed, that they weren't just some dark heartbroken dream, and they're being pulled down into the maw of something strong and dark and terrible. Killian is going down after them, and she can't let them take him away, she can't stand it – and she reaches out, straining, clawing into the abyss with everything she has and is, crying –

_crying –_

* * *

It's two weeks after they were released from prison in Phoenix and they're somewhere in west Texas, the evening still steaming hot despite the fact that the sun set an hour ago, the great big sky streaked with purple and pink and blue, the clouds glowing as if they've been smelted in the forge. There's no one on the two-lane county highway except them and they're parked on the shoulder, sitting on the boot of the Bug with Henry sacked out on her chest, sated and replete. She's been a mother for not quite three months and she still fears every time he goes quiet that she's killed him somehow, because nobody in their right mind should trust her with a baby. She's not sure this was the right choice, sometimes. Anyone has to do better. Anyone must know how.

"Here," Killian says, and holds out his arms. "Give him to me."

Emma hesitates, then hands the sleeping baby over to him. Killian props him against his shoulder, humming low in his throat. It's a sad song about a woman whose sailor lover drowns at sea during a terrible storm – _when dawn came grey you went to catch the tide, leaving me waking in an empty bed, for I was loved and loved but never wed, and left alone to hope and pray and fear, God speed you back to me, my bonny dear_ – but Emma always likes it when he sings it, despite how morbid it is. Killian doesn't know where he learned it, just that it's something that seems as much part of him as his right hand, as his blue eyes, as she is. Something changes in Killian when they're near the sea. She wishes he could remember where he was born. She wishes she could.

They sit there in silence, except for Killian's humming, for some time. Since there's nobody nearby, nothing but the distant black silhouettes of pumpjacks and the whisk of passing tumbleweeds, Emma has her bra straps down, and Killian's shirt is mostly unbuttoned. The stars start to come out overhead, huge and bright, the Milky Way like a smear of luminescent dust across the dark arch of the heavens. Emma's never seen anything like it.

As she stares, mesmerized, Killian gets up, goes around the front, and puts Henry in his car seat. Then he returns, sits back next to her, and asks softly, "Do you want to stay here, love?"

Emma's startled. She's barely thought about where they'll go, as long as it's far away from Portland, far away from Phoenix. She doesn't think it's this, though. She doesn't want to be a rancher or an oilman's wife, not that Killian seems cut out for either occupation, in some sleepy little town down in Texas – the streets all rolled down, the shades all rolled up. "No," she says. "I want to keep going."

"Where?"

"I'm… not sure." They can't go back to being vagrants without a place to lay their heads, not forever. Not with Henry, and the great and terrible and wonderful future that sometimes Emma sees when she looks at him asleep. For a moment she's at a loss. Then she says, "Let's go turn on the radio. See what we hear."

Killian gets up and follows her into the car – because they are children, both of them, and the idea of spinning a bottle, of pointing blindfolded at a map, is how children choose, to throw the dice into the air and see where they fall, to let chance take its caprice and its due. He slides into the driver's seat, twists the key, and hits the power button for the old FM radio. It takes a while of futzing to make it get a signal, this far out in the boondocks, but at last through the white noise, some contemporary rock station comes on. They lean over the dashboard, listening.

_You said you don't know me, and you don't even care, ooh yeah  
And you said you don't know me, and you don't wear my chains, ooh yeah_

_She said I think I'll go to Boston_  
I think I'll start a new life  
I think I'll start it over  
Where no one knows my name

 _I think I'll go to Boston_  
I think that I'm just tired  
I think I need a new town to leave this all behind  
I think I need a sunrise  
I'm so sick and tired of the sunset  
Hear it's nice in the summer  
Some snow would be nice.

_In Boston no one knows my name_

_In Boston no one knows my name._

Killian leans back with a slow breath, and Emma can see the tears standing out in his eyes, spilling silently down his cheeks. She reaches clumsily for his hand and takes it, holds it hard, pressing it to her heart, as she kisses his fingers. Their foreheads brush, their breath mingles, as their shoulders heave with the force of holding back their sobs. They hold each other tightly.

In the distance, a train whistle sounds.

"All right," she whispers to him at last. "Let's go to Boston."

* * *

Emma remembers.

She remembers and she will not let go. She is still in that dark car at the end of summer, she's holding onto Killian and there's no force in any imaginable realm that can separate them – and then she's awake, and everything is slamming back into place around her, and she's on her knees in the dark woods in Storybrooke, holding onto his jacket, as he is lying unconscious in the leaves, blood trickling down his face from the gash in his forehead. Gold is standing above them with the black wand brandished, and Henry is shouting, and even Regina is shouting, and the world is spinning and spinning like a coin flicked with a thumb, and she keeps waiting for him to wake up and come back to her, because he has, he always has. Killian doesn't leave her. It's not in him. Not through time, eternity, grief, and death.

But he still doesn't move. Doesn't stir.

He isn't breathing.

Her world is small and crushed and impossible. Her mind reels. For a moment she's back in that dark and grimy motel with the strange man, and then it's just her and she's alone, she's alone so terribly that it moves in her like being caught in a gale and flung away like a leaf, into a far worse storm. She is so afraid and she has been so afraid for so long, and in the end it's cost her the one thing she feared the most, until the power it has over her multiplies and fractures and grows, given unholy and never-ending life. It's like that reflection, that hall of mirrors. Nothing real and nothing false. Only fear.

She has to stop it now.

She has to believe. In this, in them. In anything they ever were.

She closes her eyes, leans down, and kisses him.

And then, in that breath, in that brightness, the world changes.

* * *

Magic does not come to Storybrooke in one fell swoop, in some cloud of purple smoke billowing over the horizon and engulfing everything that came before. It comes in small pieces, in drops and dashes, a garden blooming where there wasn't one before or the graffiti on the toll bridge vanishing, when things turn up abruptly when Emma was just looking for them, or indeed the vast collection of artifacts in Gold's shop acting up in ways they are not supposed to. It comes in the way healing comes: sometimes a moment where everything seems perfect and transcendent and timeless, sometimes one where it seems beyond hope. Some moments where you can finally breathe when it feels as if your head has been held underwater for eternity, when rusted gears start turning again and new memories soothe the sting of the old ones, when sometimes it goes backward and sometimes it goes forward and you have no idea how. Only that it remains unfathomable, and impossible, and necessary.

And so, it is not the case that they never struggle again, that they never wonder what would have been if they hadn't made the choices that they had, that their lives are suddenly full of ease and joy and light. No life is. But it is so that Killian moves into the apartment with Emma and Henry, that with the curse broken they begin to find the truth about her past, that she meets Snow and Charming, that they start to learn and struggle how to be a family together. Elizabeth and William learn the truth, and nothing is easy and nothing is straightforward, but they are still breathing. They are still here, and they're still trying. Still wanting. Still loving.

Life here is not for the faint of heart. There are monsters and there are curses and there are trials. But ever more, it's _home._ Where the world turns toward a day where Ellie and Liam refer to both Regina and Emma as "Mom" and Killian as "Dad"; Regina's new partner, Robin, will have to wait some time yet for that honor, but he'll get there eventually. Along the way, there's a time when everyone does what they weren't supposed to, makes the wrong choice, acts on their worst natures – but where it's still possible for forgiveness to come, to creep into the fabric of their existence in the same slow, steady way. Where they become, knitted together in their crazy-quilt eccentricity and impossibility, a family.

These, then, are the chains they wore.

These, then, are the chains they break.


End file.
